By Picking Donald Trump As the GOP Nominee, Republicans May Have Handed the Presidency to Hillary Clinton

Why did GOP voters pick such a weak general election candidate?

Last night, the Republican party effectively handed its presidential nomination to Donald Trump. And in doing so, they may have handed an easy general election victory to Hillary Clinton. What in the world were Republican voters thinking?

In normal circumstances, Hillary Clinton, who is virtually certain to be the Democratic presidential nominee, would almost certainly be the least liked major party presidential candidate in decades. But amongst the general electorate, Trump is viewed even worse. An April poll by The Washingotn Postfound that 67 percent of adults view him unfavorably, and a result that is consistent with other polls. Trump is particularly disliked by women, with multiple polls finding that more than 70 percent view him unfavorably. As a Quinnipiac University pollster told Politico in March, those numbers alone make it very difficult for Trump to win in a general election.

And, indeed, early polling suggests that Trump would fare poorly—very poorly—against Hillary Clinton in a general election matchup.

Trump trails Hillary Clinton by a whopping 13 points in a national poll by CNN/ORC released yesterday, and he's down by about seven points in an average of polls pitting him against Clinton. That gap may close somewhat as the broader public looks more closely at the two candidates, but it means that Hillary Clinton is likely to start the race with a big advantage.

Trump's team, in response, has argued that he would upend the usual electoral map, winning working class voters that Republicans wouldn't normally be able to reach. He might change the map, yes, but most likely by making it more favorable to Clinton. Trump is currently running behind Clinton in at least four states—North Carolina, Arizona, Missouri, and Utah—that Romney won in 2012. And Romney, as you may recall, lost the election.

Anything can happen in an election, of course, and external shocks, in particular, could scramble the race in a variety of ways. Trump is an unusual enough candidate that we should probably have slightly less confidence in our ability to model any race he's in.

But the reality, as Nate Cohn writes pursuasively in The New York Times, is that just about every data point we have right now suggests that Trump would be a historically weak candidate—even against someone who would normally be considered a fairly weak candidate, like Hillary Clinton.

In giving the nomination to Trump, then, Republicans may have ensured a win for Clinton—the outcome that, in theory, the party was trying to prevent.

This isn't some startling new conclusion. Trump's weakness as a general election candidate has been apparent for months. And yet Republican primary voters appear to have, if anything, warmed to him as the election has gone on. He won Indiana with slightly more than 53 percent of the vote last night, beating out the combined vote total of both of his rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, suggesting that Trump's success is not strictly a result of the fractured field.

So what's going on? The general presumption when looking at these races is that primary voters take electability into account in their decision process. That just doesn't seem to have happened this year, and it's one of the reasons that campaign staffers and election analysts have struggled to understand what voters are thinking.

Maybe, though, it did happen—but Republicans just didn't accept the evidence that was in front of them.

I haven't seen any recent polling, but as the race was moving into high gear last October, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that Republican voters viewed Trump as the most electable candidate in a general election. That was wrong based on everything we knew then, and it's even more wrong based on what we know now.

And yet this may explain the mystery of why Republican voters ultimately went for Trump. They really thought they were selecting the most electable candidate.

If that's the case, the race makes a lot more sense, putting Trump's popularity in perspective and helping to explain why GOP voters seemed to settle on him as the field narrowed.

It's also rather telling about the gullibility of Republican voters, and their disconnection from the rest of the country.

It's probably unreasonable to expect most voters to keep up with the finer points of political polling (although primary voters do tend to be more politically involved and informed than the general population). But it shouldn't have required a deep dive into the survey numbers to see Trump as an unappealing candidate and a bad general election bet.

Republican primary voters, on the other hand, saw the same campaign and nodded along, thinking, that guy is electable, and we want him to be our nominee. They thought not only that they liked him, but that the rest of the country would too.

That's how disconnected Republican voters are right now, how unable they are to see things as the rest of the country sees them, or, indeed, to even understand that the rest of the country sees things differently, even when it is in their own interests to do so. That disconnect is what resulted in Donald Trump winning the nomination, and it is likely to ensure that Hillary Clinton becomes the next president of the United States.

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Hahaha seriously. Hillary is about to get fucking steamrolled. She’s not even going to know what hit her.

These are early days for the general election. Once the Trump doom cannon is aimed in her direction, it’s going to be lights out for Hillary.

Remember everyone who just knew Trump wasn’t a serious candidate? Then they just knew he’d flame out sooner rather than later? Then they just knew he’d never actually compete in the primaries? Then they just knew there would be a contested convention? Then they just knew that there was no way he’d actually be the nominee?

Yeah. Those are the same people who just know he’s going to lose to Hillary. Hell, I used to be one of them. But I’m not underestimating him anymore. His campaign is a force of nature, and Hillary is a horrible candidate even on a good day.

Dream on. First, the media, that has badly wanted him to be HiLIARy’s opponent – wonder why that is? – will stop having Trump on TV 24/7, to the point that, within a couple of weeks it will be “Donald, who?”. Second, there is nothing he can come up with that hasn’t already been said about the Hildebeast. He may be more crass about it, but when no one is broadcasting you, you can be as vile as you want about the facts and all that will be displayed will be the vile. Third, the media, and their other arms of the demoncrap party will be coming out with all their “oppo” research, especially with former “deal” victims of The Dundald – you think the little old lady that he wanted “eminent domained” for a limo parking lot was bad? Anyone, who thinks the one candidate, with worse negative ratings than HiLIARy, is going to beat her, has lost their mind.

That is certainly one possibility, and I see where you’re coming from, but I gotta say that I don’t think the media will be able to look away even if they want to. They love ratings more than they love Hillary, and the Donald Trump show is the best thing on television; it’s been a windfall for every network — and they need it. I don’t think it’s going to be quite so easy for them to simply ignore him.

People are forgetting about Bernie. You have to realize that as of today, Hillary has to campaign against Sanders and Trump at the same time. Mathematically, neither Clinton nor Bernie can accumulate enough committed delegates to secure the nomination. So it is guaranteed that it will be a contested convention. Then the DNC is faced with shutting out Bernie, which in turn will cause many of his voters to stay at home. Clinton loses more at a contested convention than the media will give her credit for, and you can bet that’s where this is headed. Bernie, as a former independent, has nothing to lose. He’ll just detach himself from the Democrats and go back to being an independent, so they hold absolutely no sway over him.

There’s much more going on, and this article really fucked it’s analysis by not considering the damage Bernie has done and will continue to do to Clinton.

We’ll see. Trump is a loose cannon and with anyone else, as soon as they have one misstep, they are done for. He has been immune thus far, but only with primary voters.

I think it may be a good thing if Hillary wins. That way she and Barack will get the blame when this current bubble bursts and the entire world is in severe recession/depression. Trump wants to put economic and immigration policies in place that would hurt the economy so even though I agree with him on a few things (global warming, political correctness, and decrease the military and wars?), he is mostly bad news.

Everyone needs to understand that the ONLY THING preserving your rights for the last two decades has been the SCOTUS. And with Scalia gone and more vacancies sure to open in the next administration, everything is on the line now. Literally everything.

A liberal court will effectively nullify the first, second, fourth, and fifth amendments. Period. Liberals will bring every single pet cause they’ve ever had before the court, and they’ll get them all. Whenever they can’t get something through the house, they’ll just sue and let the court do the work for them. Everything. Gun control, campaign finance, hate speech laws, social justice, internet regulation, environmental lawfare… you name it. It will be the end of the constitution.

This isn’t an exaggeration. This is the actual situation we’re in. Trump has pledged to nominate conservative judges and will even release names of people he’d nominate. Hillary will absolutely, 100% nominate the most liberal judicial activists she can find.

You may not like Trump, but the SCOTUS is bigger than the presidency right now.

Who knows anything about Trump except that his election will be magnificent, fabulous, unbelievable, wonderful, terrific – so terrific you won’t believe it – . . . . . . . . . No wonder he has such a following. Who can top that?

Platforms, not candidates, are what determine legislation. Antiabortionism, unlike the Libertarian Party platform in These States or Canada, is not electable. To put it in terms that make sense to blinkered republican mystics: fetus forfeiture is no more a viable position than civil asset forfeiture looting, now that the cause of the crash and depression is public knowledge.

Gosh, after all these years, a brainwashee of William Jennings Bryan defending prohibitionism and the Tennessee Monkey Trial verdict… Who’d a thunk it? Cue up “Gimme dat Ole Time Religion” with Ben Carson on de hawrmonicky.

If they were simply “voting for him”, why don’t those numbers show up in the general election polling? If significant numbers of demoncraps were, really, going to cross over, it would be reflected in those polls that, consistently show Mr. Trumpery losing. When it comes to underhanded dealing, it is something that comes naturally to progressives/demoncraps – its how they get most of their “victories”.

Yeah I think this really goes against human nature. In fact, I knew Democrats that switched sides just to vote against Trump in the Republican primary, not as sabotage, but because they genuinely did not want Trump to have the possibility of becoming the next president.

Nate Silver said no way Trump would win GOP back in August, so his opinion on Trump just as wrong as the rest of the media. I think the Progs are scared and trying to convince themselves Trump has no chance. The reality is this race is anybodies and many twists yet to come.

Don’t feel bad. I read an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story that had the same, somewhat common error. And, of course, that’s after some big shot editor had reviewed the thing at least once. But this is the Internet — mistakes like that are unforgivable.

Author. Think I saw the same mistake in a Steinbeck piece, but I’m not sure.

Related: I was on here a month ago and was talking about the misuse of words. Someone mentioned “presently” as being often used wrong. I was reading David Copperfield and, sure enough, Dickens used “presently” in the “wrong” way — almost 200 years ago. At what point do we shrug and say, “oh well, that’s accepted now?”

The problem this article has is the same problem the media and political establishment have in general: The only way they have to judge voter sentiment is polling and polling is beginning to fail badly. ? of the arguments made here are based on no other evidence whatsoever beyond “polls say x” with nary a mention that polls said Hillary would win Michigan and Indiana.

Even if polling wasnt starting to fall apart as a predictive tool, early polling has never been terribly effective as telling us much of anything. Bernie was down like 40 points when he first entered the race, which might have been accurate, save for everything else that happened. Congrats, you maybe learned a piece of information which may or may not be true and is most irrelevant even if it is true.

Suderman does the same thing here, he talks on and on about how foolish the voters must be because they dont know or buy into the snake oil that he believes in.

I think that, just maybe, the people that are sick and tired of the way the country is being run have found a candidate not bought and paid for by the establishment hacks. I think many are leftovers from the last go-round when Ron Paul was treated like dirt, on the floor of the convention. It happened after a quick rule change that required an increased number of wins needed to even be recognized! Now, they have to change the rules again. But, it wont work this time because the peons have spoken. I happen to think my candidate would have been a better choice. But, he is not the type to run up a lot of expenses, campaigning for a lost cause! The question about Mr Trump is how many Democrats and Independents will vote for him. We cannot ignore the fact that there could be a third party exodus of the millennials, as well. They have spoken up that they don’t like Mr Trump. How will it go when they have to consider voting for a person who has such a lack of character, when that vote might result in a Hillary win because they reverted back to the party line. I have heard some say that they would write Bernie in. That could, also, have a big effect on the outcome of the election! It does appear that the election is up for grabs!

God’s Own Prohibitionist infiltrators are out in force now. The bookie odds in England do not lie. Politicians who think only of raping and coercing women are as certain to lose now as they were in 1865. Bye bye…

Well, the demoncraps had only two choices, both pretty weak, so, it is no surprise for them. Remember, the election after Nixon resigned and was pardoned, and the demoncraps could have nominated anyone and won, and what did they come up with? The Peanut Farmer, who couldn’t last more than one term.

Weakness is relative. Compared to prohibitionist, antiabortion, mystical bigots, even Bernie has better odds than Trump and wutzisname from anti-libertarian Ohio put together. The Canadian LP has no abortion plank. Ask yourself why.

And yet, almost all of these negatives were known qualities of Trump in January, when no one believed he would be the nominee. We have gotten where we are by not taking the loon seriously and Hillary had to sell her long association with Washington as an asset. There are plenty of people with the retail political skill to do that and she is not one of them.

Do not think he can’t win. Not unless you want to wear JebFace for four years.

And let’s not think about all of Hillary’s negatives, because Trump and the GOP totally won’t go after her for the Beghazi fiasco and lies, the Clinton Foundation corrupt slush fund, selling influence at State in return for “donations” to said slush fund, the private server and blatant criminal violation of national security protocols, her covering up for her serial rapist/sexual assaulter husband and her smearing of his victims, her laughing about using falsehoods to get a guy off who raped a child and later laughing about it, etc. etc. Nope, not too many negatives there. It should be a slam-dunk for Hillary!

“…they can’t resist giving him lots of airtime.” Just watch them. If there’s one thing they care about more than ratings, it is being the SJWs of the airwaves. Can anyone say they think they get worthwhile ratings broadcasting the WNBA?

Hillary’s negatives don’t matter because the MSM won’t report on them, and will run interference for her.

For a traditional Republican candidate who plays by the old rules of begging the media to give them some positive coverage from time to time, perhaps, but Trump has already demonstrated that he commands attention and can work the media like none before him.

McCain said: August 16, 2008: A baby is entitled to human rights at the moment of conception. I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate. Election Odds: zero, a woman-bullying loser

LOL, so true, PB!!!1!!1!!1oneoneone!!!!1111!! It’s like, ZOMGWOWZERS, Hillary totes circumvented public transparency laws and lied on countless FOIA requests and getting a bunch of Americans killed by incompetent management in a warzone the US didn’t have Constitutionally required approval to be in was SMART POWER AT ITS BEST!!! 1!!1! Becuz BOOOOSH!!! amirite! Word!

Maybe, but more likely that the media, who has been all-Trump-all-the-time will now be “Who is that talking about old news? Oh, Donald Trump? Is a new season of Apprentice starting soon? On to the wonderful things HiLIARy will do for you women.”

And the Hillary candidacy isn’t? Remarkably, she’s objectively even less qualified to be the president than he is, and that’s saying a lot.

For his many personality flaws, Trump at least has contributed something to society in the form of a few buildings and golf courses and such. What has Hillary truly accomplished in her life, other than be lucky enough to pick the right guy to be a fake husband, and help to get a whole bunch of people killed in the Middle East?

That was the narrative but, in fact, Romney fought against “Romneycare”, tried to alter the bill repeatedly and in the end vetoed it, but was overridden by the legislature, at every turn. It may have come into being while he was in office but he had almost nothing to do with what it did.

You can put your money where your piehole is right now on oddschecker.com Irish and English bookies are offering 3 to 1 odds the pro-choice party candidate wins; 2 to 1 odds the antichoice mystics lose. Place your bets, genn’lmin, the wheel is turning.

Trumps watered-down antiabortionist party is two to one to lose among mathematical bookies who don’t give a rat’s ass about Revealed Faith. They are betting three to one cash money right this second that the former First Lady will win. Go ahead… make my day… I will vote against the looters no matter what.

Wow. Take your blinders off. Yes the Republican primary voters are stupid, but so is everyone else. Trump can win this easily. All he has to do is appeal to Bernie supporters by throwing worthless crumbs about “Citizens United” or some other silly issue (corruption, banksters, etc) to which they attribute their lack of success. See, here’s the thing about Bernie supporters – they are the dumb kids in class who think they’re smart but the only thing they’re really good at is making up excuses for why they’re not succeeding. And guess who understands that psychology and knows exactly how to feed it? You guessed it: Der Trumpff. And yes he will pivot quickly, if he hasn’t already.

I admit I was one of the people who thought Trump had no chance of actually getting the nomination. I won’t underestimate him this time around. I don’t know if he’ll win the general, but Hillary is far from a sure thing.

Same here. The more people continue to underestimate him, the more likely I think it becomes that he wins. Seems a bit like George W. Bush, who was dismissed as a light-weight (understandably) but was pretty good at winning elections. (I say this as as a Never-Trump voter.)

From this point on, all the polls will be nationwide Trump vs HiLiary. No more just Republicans and just from one state. These polls have virtually never gone in Trump’s favor. In as much as something stupid like “momentum” in a political race is concerned, it will all be with HiLIARy.

Americans are poised to lose no matter which wing of the Kleptocracy is installed. But every libertarian vote changes ten times the laws compared to any vote poured down the rathole of looter parasitism.

Maybe…it’s a vote of no confidence by the Republican base in the people who claim to represent them in Washington, who then ignore them and feed at the trough for X years after they are elected, while simultaneously getting a BJ from the conversative media establishment.

That might not be how it started but that’s what it became.

Also, I see this primary as a stake in the heart of so-conry. It is no longer an electable strategy almost anywhere, and is headed for the graveyard. But, I’m a glass half full guy sometimes.

If all my snocone friends weren’t the biggest Trump supporters around, I’d agree. However, the fight against PC is the biggest front in the Kultur War, so the snocones are happy to take up arms and fight for anti-PC Trump.

This is much less about Hillary’s appeal over Obama’s but rather that Romney is a superior general election candidate to Trump in almost every way imaginable. And people tend to stay home when they don’t like who’s on the ballot.

I went to visit my parents two weeks ago and they had a Trump sign in the front yard. I didn’t mention it because I’m a good son. On the way out to lunch my dad says “Did you see my big Trump sign?” I kind of grunt. He says “I didn’t vote for him, I just think it’s funny how much he pisses people off”. I really hope this is just an organic grass roots troll campaign.

And honestly, the more SJWs, the media, and the other leftists protest him, the more people will come around to voting for him due to the fact he pisses off all the right people. I remain steadfastly convinced this is a large part of why I and many others voted for W. in 2004.

“I didn’t vote for him, I just think it’s funny how much he pisses people off”.

Damn near every Trump supporter I know has said this at one point in time. Most of them I doubt bothered voting for him in the primaries, and even if they did, they viewed it as some sort of prank, like shouting BABA BOOEY on live television. And I’ll admit, I kinda like it, too. But there’s no way I’m voting for him. Or anyone, ‘cept maybe Almanian.

Trump is simply the least fanatically mohammedan of the GOP antiabortionists. This is Herb Hoover versus FDR’s party all over again, crash, asset forfeiture, depression, unemployment, fetus forfeiture, prohibitionism versus repeal… the works. I wish Al Smith could see it…

I can totally see him losing the Midwest and Utah. Every Mormon I know despises Trump primarily because he’s a loudmouth shit-talker, which naturally repulses them. Same thing with the Midwest, which has an almost pathological fetish for “nice” people and is filled to the brim with socons in the lower section and Scandanavian socialists in the upper section. The question is whether he can make it up those losses in the Rust Belt.

Trump has been closing the gap in the polls. He’s out of a contested primary. Hillary is a dreadful campaigner. Her best pitch (the “woman card”) is falling pretty flat.

I wouldn’t overlook the fact that there were a very large number of voters who voted for non-establishment candidates. This will be insider v outsider, and I think its an outsider year.

But, elections often turn on events in the summer or fall. Anything can happen, but I have a hard time seeing events that will break Hillary’s way. Bad Things in foreign policy are simmering everywhere, and none of them will redound to an ex-SecState’s benefit.

Her Woman Card pitch is easily turned back on her, by pointing out her making a career out of covering for her serial rapist husband and smearing his victims. The other GOP candidates wouldn’t go there, but I think Trump won’t hesitate.

Trump will be going up against screeching progs disconnected from reality. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of him to be made, but they will be too busy comparing him to Hitler and screaming about rape camps for immigrants to touch on anything that might influence anyone besides other screeching progs

First, it wasn’t ALL Republicans who picked Trump. They – and he – don’t speak for me. It was a minority of GOP primary voters, who aren’t representative of the overall GOP population, who chose Trump.

Second, who knows how it will turn out? Who really predicted that a nobody Senator with one speech to his credit would have won in 2008? Or that a former governor who had problems getting his words together would have denied the Democrats a third term in 2000? She doesn’t generate any real enthusiasm beyond the professional liberal, and there are many months for things to come out that will further erode her credibility with the public.

To his credit, Trump is probably the only one among the GOP contenders who isn’t going to be afraid to take Hillary head on. As he puts it, she’s got one card to play, and he’s not going to stand idly by while she tries to play it (unlike pretty much every other GOP contender who would have bent over backwards to show that he isn’t anti-woman).

Your last paragraph is why Trump is going to do better than people think. The Repubs laid down for Obama twice out of fear of bad press. Trump feeds on bad press. He has set things up so that bad press just reinforces his outsider status. He has taken the “personalize everything” character assassination media attacks, and made attacks on him attacks on everyone.

Trump is reciting the GOP platform. The only surprise move is he dropped the 2012 totalerkrieg antiabortion plank version for Reagan’s 1980 “with exceptions” antiabortion plank version–from back when nuclear-tipped communism still existed. Remember communist empires with hydrogen bombs?

More people have voted for Trump in the primaries than any other GOP candidate ever at this point. Aside from the tiny cult of #NeverTrump Buckley fetishists, Trump is damn representative of the overall GOP population.

The founding fathers agreed, which is partly why they created a republic instead of a democracy – they knew how ignorant and stupid the average man could be. The other part was because they were elitists and not about to accept such people as their peers or equals, except perhaps in name only .

Oddschecker.com Place your bets on Trump and retire a rich pundit. Those limey suckers are laying long odds, but mystical republicans understand that women LIKE being raped, coerced, deprived of rights, sold, stoned in the public square, forced to wear burkhas… go for it! Allahu akbar!

The mistake Peter’s making is that Hillary is possibly the worst campaigner to ever be nominated for the US presidency. The more people see her the less they like her and she performs terribly at debates.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Trump rapidly closes the gap. When you have two candidates who are this terrible and roundly disliked, there’s no way you can assume poll numbers will stay the same for the next six months. It’s completely unpredictable.

“oversaw the Department of State during a period of widespread international tumult”

Oh, that’s a pretty clever way to say, “things went to absolute shit while I was in charge”. I could totally fuck things up at my job, then walk into the next job interview and say, “I presided over my department during a period of widespread confusion, extreme disorganization, and rock-bottom morale!”

At least her platform committee is competent. The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. The LP should have as competent a platform committee. We could be under indictment, stoned, stupid, and STILL win!

I hope Suderman and other political pundits writing about the inevitability of a Hillary win are putting their money where their mouth is and betting the outcome. On bovada right now you can get -250 for a Democrat to win the presidency, which — if you’re as confident in the outcome as Suderman appears to be — is a nice price (implies an ~70% chance of victory).

Sports pundits do this too, and it annoys me to no end, confidently stating X or Y will happen. You could save us all a lot of time if you just let us know how much you placed on a particular outcome.

It’s possible I’m overstating Suderman’s (and other pundits like him) confidence — I’m drawing from lines such as “it is likely to ensure that Hillary Clinton becomes the next president of the United States” — but if you’re writing in terms like you see in the article above, that to me implies you think 70% is understating Hillary’s likelihood of victory and, thus, -250 is a profitable play.

Scott Adams didn’t, over at the Dilbert blog. Then again, Scott knows math and is gainfully employed… Adams predicted The Don would crush all competitors. But the antiabortion plank crushes all danger of mystical bigots gaining power, just as in Canada.

I think [everyone who was entirely wrong about Trump so far] is right! They make a great point. The data [which were absolutely useless about Trump 6 months ago] suggests things might finally start to go the way they say [which is to say, conform entirely to their egotistical-wishful-thinking] The Toppest of Top Men have looked at the numbers! [Like Nate Silver, who was wrong and then even wronger over and over again] The fact that Hillary has been unable to decisively beat an old raving communist from Brooklyn who wasn’t even registered as a Democrat for the last 2 decades belies her inherent strength as a candidate.

Wow man! Get a load of the pre-1957 mystical altruist. Bernie will beat the GOP even if the former First Lady drops dead today, according to English and Irish bookies. This is better’n a trip to the museum!

I question the idea that he’s automatically weaker. Gross and buffoonish, yes, but weaker? Not necessarily.

1) The Republican primaries have gotten 4 million more votes than the Democratic ones. Much of that, we must conclude, is Trump drawing independents and Dems– because there aren’t more Republicans, and he has the largest share of votes so it must be him drawing them, it seems safe to say. If he does it now, why can’t he do it in November?

2) He’s great at TV. She’s terrible at TV. Where will the remainder of the election be fought?

There’s little conventional wisdom that this race hasn’t upended so far. That Trump can’t possibly expand his appeal against Hillary, because of course she’s so beloved, is likely to be another one.

1) I’m not convinced there’s more than a sliver of that; most people don’t think that way. Yes, I know what the polls say, and they may well prove accurate, but the point is that the next several months favor him in several ways.

2) I don’t think debates are the important form of TV for this election. If they were, they would have sunk him.

By Picking Donald Trump As the GOP Nominee, Republicans May Have Handed the Presidency to Hillary Clinton

That’s preposterous! HillRod is sooo unlikable and, besides, El Trumpo has the utmost support from the Latino community. He said so himself.

Trump is particularly disliked by women, with multiple polls finding that more than 70 percent view him unfavorably.

Oh, don’t worry. Once he reassures them that he will not jail them for having abortions, they will love him!

It’s also rather telling about the gullibility of Republican voters, and their disconnection from the rest of the country.

What is telling is that they quickly rallied to him the moment he asserted that more than half of all Mexican immigrants were rapists, drug dealers and criminals, once he defined the totality by using the conjunction ‘and’ along with the determiner ‘some’ to describe those who are good, in his estimation. And ‘some’ cannot mean anything except less than half of the total. That is the ‘They Takum Er Jebz!’ crowd.

Your last paragraph is absurd. When people speak they aren’t always perfectly precise in their words. Trump was talking about the (inarguable) problem of Mexican illegal immigrant criminality, and realized he might be understood as saying that all of them were criminals, and corrected himself with the “some are good people” clause. Yeah, maybe he should have said “most,” but it should be obvious he wasn’t speaking in mathematical percentages.

True, “Mexicans” is shorthand. They are the majority, though. As for non-Latins: generally a minor issue (except for Muslims). Nobody cares if some French overstay their visas. They aren’t on welfare, joining street gangs, and waving French flags while advocating taking back Louisiana.

I think it will be easier for left-leaning general election voters to hold their nose and vote Clinton than for right-leaning general election voters to hold their nose for Trump. I have no data to back this up, but I am one hundred percent correct. Hilldawg walks away with this easily. Fuck you, GOP primary voters.

I dunno about that. A lot of Bern victims donated their entire McDonald’s paycheck thinking it was an investment for college, come off as suicidal and harbor intense hatred for the Oligarch. I’d wager most of them sit home and try to overdose on pills and booze.

I think you’re wrong. Right-leaning voters will vote Trump. He’s the patriotic ass-kicker in this election. Unless you think right-leaning voters want more Obamacare, more gun control, more illegal aliens, and more Muslims.

“Trump trails Hillary Clinton by a whopping 13 points in a national poll by CNN/ORC released yesterday, and he’s down by about seven points in an average of polls pitting him against Clinton. That gap may close somewhat as the broader public looks more closely at the two candidates, but it means that Hillary Clinton is likely to start the race with a big advantage.”

What was Hillary Clinton’s polling advantage over Bernie last July? Oh right – she was up 50 points.

Today she’s up five and the closes Sanders got was a virtual tie.

She lost 49 percentage points vs. Sanders in less than a year and 23 points since December while running against a crazed socialist with no indoor voice.

You want to know why Trump was so successful? Partially because no one took him seriously in July and tried to laugh him off. Good to see no one’s learned their lesson.

Trump’s path to victory in the GOP was: – standing out in a field that stayed way too big and building up an early delegate lead (still hasn’t broken 40% of the total primary vote btw) – being willing to say things the base likes to hear, but none of the professional politicians he’s competing with would say because they don’t want to piss off the general electorate and/or end their own careers – getting free media time because the MSM wanted him to be Hillary’s opponent – getting votes in the GOP primary from Democrats who want to guarantee a weak opponent for Hillary

Explain which of these will contribute to a victory in the general election.

– An indictment of Clinton – A leak by an FBI agent annoyed at no indictment – An economic downturn – A terror attack – A spectacular crime by an illegal immigrant – More migrant turmoil in Europe – The scheduled Obamacare premium increases that happen just before the election – Hillary health troubles

winning working class voters that Republicans wouldn’t normally be able to reach.

Democrats, iow.

This going to be a shitshow – it’s usually the Dems slinging mud, name-calling, using every dirty trick in the book to win the debate and the poor sap R trying to argue with logic and reasoning and getting nowhere because “Free Shit!” beats “There is no such thing as free shit” every time. This time, the GOP has a shit-slinging monkey of their own and Hillary may be the one trying to use logic and reasoning when the last 6 months have proven Trump is impervious to that. For however much the Clintons have always been lying shit-weasels, they have at least had some primitive need to defend and excuse and rationalize their lying shit-weaselry – witness all the bullshit Hillary has slung on all the scandals she’s been implicated on as if she has some need to explain to you why she’s really not a lying piece of shit if only to convince herself that she’s not a lying piece of shit. Trump lacks even that modicum of non-psychopathology. He lies about everything but if you try to call him on it he just shrugs and says “Yeah? So what’s your point?” and moves on. He takes great pride in being a lying piece of shit. It’s some kind of accomplishment to be as big a piece of shit as he is and not be locked in a jail cell or chained to a galley oar or swinging from a lamppost.

Republican Steve Schmidt nailed it last night. This is just the chickens come home to roost from decades of right wing radio and TV pundits. The crass and conspiratorial opinings of the likes of Levin, Savage, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter and so many more insured this kind of result. As David Frum pointed out astutely years ago, GOP media has become the tail wagging the dog.

What they never saw coming were all those attacks being directed internally. That if you get all your viewpoints from radio and TV jocks, don’t be surprised if a media star gets the nomination.

You’re surprised Trumps attacks on Cruz’s Canadian birth gained traction? That he could suggest his father was part of the Kennedy assassination? That the GOP electorate bought it all? They bought this garbage once before.

Reason and everyone else has been saying Trump is the least likely to get anywhere but here it is obviously people are lying to pollsters and political commentators don’t know what they are talking about. And in all reality Trump is no where near evil and corrupt as Hillary. Every one talks about his language but the left has always used profanity and outright lies against the Right.

I think Reason just wants to maintain their cred’s with the left but all they are doing is showing their true colors by forever attacking Trump. Will it change to more balance now that its just Hillary and Trump. i won’t hold my breath

Yeah, I think they get a lot of responses from people who are so lonely that they answer the phone no matter whether they recognize the number on caller ID or from people who aren’t smart enough to filter their calls.

Even if I did answer a call from someone I didn’t know, as soon as they asked me to take a survey, I’d get rid of them like they were telemarketers. We’re talking about really gullible people. The people who answer opinion polls are the same people who buy things through spam or send money to Nigerian princes with cash flow problems.

It just occurred to me that I’ve ignored a lot of calls from unknown numbers lately. I wonder how many of them were pollsters. And I’ll keep that in mind the next time I see a poll that demonstrates how stupid people are, and ask myself “well nobody asked for my opinion!”

“Trump’s team, in response, has argued that he would upend the usual electoral map, winning working class voters that Republicans wouldn’t normally be able to reach. He might change the map, yes, but most likely by making it more favorable to Clinton. Trump is currently running behind Clinton in at least four states?North Carolina, Arizona, Missouri, and Utah?that Romney won in 2012.”

I don’t believe Clinton will beat Trump in Arizona or Utah, and I’m skeptical about North Carolina.

The race simply changes once the nomination is won. Hillary will still be a crook who accepted bribes from a foreign governments while she was the Secretary of State. In addition, Hillary will need to keep running as far to the left as she can to fend off Sanders–and that will be off putting to swing voters. Trump has the luxury of moving to the center now that he doesn’t need to fight for the nomination anymore.

And I think Trump’s support among white, blue collar, middle class voters makes him more appealing to registered Democrats than Republicans were before.

“Trump’s team, in response, has argued that he would upend the usual electoral map, winning working class voters that Republicans wouldn’t normally be able to reach.”

Just because Trump is an insane jackass doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything. It’s important to understand that Trump’s support among the white, blue collar, middle class are the very definition of swing voters. These are people who would normally vote for centrist Democrats like Hillary Clinton. How well Trump does in the national polls may not be as important as how well he does with swing voters–and Trump has done especially well in states with open primaries.

“If he does well with swing voters, shouldn’t he do well in the national polls?”

If the swing vote were 10% of the voters who show up to the polls, and Trump is winning their support by a 2-1 margin, then that only shows up as 6.7% of the vote in the national polls. That doesn’t show up as big support for Trump in the polls, but come election day, that could very well be the margin of victory.

Having to try to outTrump Trump hurt him, but he could have won that support back with a charm offensive. Hillary Clinton is still and always will be a crook. More than 50% of the American people will always despise Hillary. If she wins the Presidency, it will only be because people despise Trump more than she does.

It’s the old fast zombie math: She doesn’t have to run faster than the zombies; she only has to run faster than Trump. And Trump is slightly less popular than having the clap.

“But certainly not Cruz. You’d have to be an autistic wino to not readily understand how thoroughly creepy and offputting the guy is to most normal people.”

The question isn’t only whether he was off putting to most people. The question is whether he was more off putting than Hillary Clinton, and the correct answer is to that question was no. He beat the shit out of Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is the most hated woman in America, and she’s held that title for a long, long time.

That being said, Cruz wasn’t seen as creepy and off putting to most “normal” people, and I linked to the polls that demonstrated that fact. Only 34% of the American people had an unfavorable opinion of him as of January–and in all the polls going back before that, going back to June of last year. Maybe you felt that way about him–doesn’t mean everyone else did.

I don’t know who will win, but how they will win is certain: whoever turns off people the least and whoever fails to de-energize their base will take it.

Given that Trump fans seem impervious to anyone pointing out silly little things like facts to them, base energy has to go to Trump.

Hillary’s base has as much energy as they will ever have. All the energy in the Democratic Party was behind Bernie. The amount of Bernie fans that will turn to Trump or a third party is laughably small, so Hillary’s job is to not be so horrible that they just stay at home. And Trump’s job is to not be so horrible as to make them come out and vote for them.

And all Trump has to do is not be gross and buffonish enough to keep GOP voters unhappy with him from not-voting. Hillary will motivate them, he just has to not sap it.

So it seems like both of them need to slow-play the general, but I’m not sure Hillary can do that, so I have to give the edge to Trump.

whoever turns off people the least and whoever fails to de-energize their base will take it.

I think this is it.

I’m willing to bet that both candidates go into the election with very high negatives, the kind that would ordinarily mean they would lose, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the winner gets votes from people who view them negatively (that is, I think the winner could have 55% negatives, and 52% of the vote).

Bottom line: It really makes no difference which clown gets elected, the deep state will carry on exactly as before.

Or, as Pete Townsend once said :” New boss same as the old boss”.

Only fools [of which there are many here and elsewhere] “think” [i.e. dream]differently.

“Dream On”?:

“……In your dream, Donald Trump is not a fraud, In your dream, Sanders is not a fraud, In your dream, all the rest are not frauds, In your dream, Obama is not a fraud, In your dream, Reagan was not a fraud, In your dream, all the rest were not frauds, In your dream, the constitution was not a scam, In your dream, the Supreme court is not a scam,”

The question isn’t only whether a President is going to take us to a truly free and just society.

The question is also about the rate of decline.

Our Second Amendment rights could be a lot worse off than they are. If Cruz had been nominated and were elected, I’d feel a lot better about the safety of our Second Amendment rights.

As it is, I don’t think Hillary and Trump are really that far apart on the Second Amendment. Hillary will use the next mass shooting as an opportunity to come after our gun rights. Trump won’t resist pressure to come after our gun rights if he thinks appealing to traditional Democrats will help him get reelected. In practice, I’m not sure there’s much difference between the two.

It’s like that on a lot of issues really. I think there really was a stark contrast between Cruz, on the one hand, and Trump and Clinton on the other, but I don’t see much difference between Hillary and Trump on the issues that I care about. It’s like choosing between two Democrats.

People are tired of ideology. No one gives a shit that you are a “conservative”. They want to know what you plan to do to solve the country’s problems. Cruz never got around to explaining that. He was too busy saying how conservative he was and how Jesus would want you to vote for him.

I like the Constitution and care about it but it makes for a meaningless campaign slogan. Conservatives all worship Reagan but if they ever bothered to listen to what he said, he never talked about being a “conservative”. He talked about how small government and freedom was going to make people’s lives better. Conservatives have lost the ability to do that and think talking in buzz words is somehow going to convince anyone to care.

Reagan also talked about communist hydrogen bombs, in between hand-wringing imprecations about the horrors of bitches presuming to own their own bodies and hippies daring to smoke the killer weed. Maybe if the commies nuke DC voters will again overlook antiabortion gibberish in senile dotage. One can always hope…

“The ‘principled conservative’ schtick that Cruz ran on isn’t a viable platform to getting the GOP nomination, much less winning a general election.”

It was enough to take control of the house.

Once again, the reason traditional Republican issues didn’t resonate in the Republican primaries was because the critical mass of people who came out for Trump were not traditional Republicans.

The white, blue collar, middle class are traditionally Democrats. Trump won the Republicans nomination because the Democratic leadership has abandoned actively demonized the white, blue collar middle class in this country–for being racist, uneducated, and selfish, respectively–chasing them into the arms of a traditional Democrat, which is what Donald Trump is. He’s a Democrat in every way that matters.

After his March 15 victories, Trump brought out a platter of “Trump Steaks” which were just steaks from the local butcher. He did that just because some article had mentioned how Trump Steaks was an abject failure and he wanted to prove it wrong….by lying.

That explains Trump in two sentences. This is a man one election away from the presidency. That should terrify everybody.

The engine behind all this is massive populist dissatisfaction, and if the voters – up to the general election – really feel that “there vote will matter” if they vote for Trump, that is what will get him in, perhaps easily. In short, the more people that turn out to vote – the pissed off people who have abstained for years – the more likely Trump gets in. That’s the short term.

The establishment on both sides have run the country into the ground. Trump is just a face on the billboard of what is coming next. That is the medium to long term.

Do people remember the public union “adjustment” Wisconsin went through five years back? The upshot is the union needed to be de-fanged so that public employees could be prompted to have to put some of their own money into benefits instead of on the taxpayers. It simply is a calibration between sub-groups – parasites and taxpayers. I figure we’re talking MAYBE $100,000,000. Do people remember the level of incivility? The Dem’s fleeing to Illinois to prevent the vote? The massive numbers of people camping in the Capitol Building? Speaker of the Assembly getting a beer poured over his head? What people aren’t going to remember – because it wasn’t public knowledge – is legislators had to be evacuated via hidden tunnels for safety. People remember that wonderful period?

Whenever I read people like Suderman claim that Hillary is sure to win, I always get a sense of it being a whole lot of wish fullfillment. The people who are pissed off and are going to turn out for Trump hate people like Suderman as much as they hate politicians. And Suderman I think knows that and can’t stomach the thought of how much the country actually hates the entire elite class. Hillary must win because the truth of her not winning is just too much for someone like Suderman to face.

This election is shining a light on the new class divide in this country. As ever, the “elite” class is much smaller than they think they are. An election that shows them how marginal they are in most people’s lives strikes at their self-image. A lot of the anti-Trumpery comes from that, I think.

I would like to put my bet in for posterity. I think it is going to be Trump in a near or greater landslide.

I can’t wait for the debates. Trump will troll her until …..[cuts to in that face melting scene at the end of the Indiana Jones movie]. Live. You’ll be able to pop popcorn from the heat coming from this woman. MMMMMMMMMMMM

You may be right. Right or wrong, you have at least thought about it to arrive at your answer. Suderman in contrast is just reflexively buying into conventional wisdom. If he is right it will be by accident not because he thought about it.

I’m not voting for Trump. I hate and wish the worst (understatement) for most the ppl supporting Trump on the internet. But I can say that about Hillary.

This is why I like San Diego. The only protesting there was, was a Ron Paul banner on a highway bridge. Too bad all my friends vote Bernie and grew up to be legal crooks. The one friend I know that supports Trump is a pretty responsible and intelligent guy.

There’s just no reason to vote Hillary, unless you want to make Bernie fans cry.

In fairness, half of Hillary voters tried to like her on the twitters. Then got sidetracked after the free iPhone window appeared. Now they’re waiting for their nephew to fix the internet, but they’ll figure it out eventually.

It’s also rather telling about the gullibility of Republican voters, and their disconnection from the rest of the country

A guy who has spent his entire career living and working at a think tank in Washington is talking about how other people are disconnected from the rest of the country. You can’t make this shit up.

And yeah, there seems to be a whole lot of over compensation going on in the pundit class. Whatever you think of Trump, the guy has gotten more votes in the Republican primary than any candidate in history. That of course doesn’t mean he will win in the fall but it makes it pretty hard to say a guy with that many motivated supporters has no chance against a candidate that even her supporters don’t really like.

I don’t think saying Hillary will win is an unreasonable guess. But saying she is certain to win seems reveals a bit of desperation on the speaker’s part.

I can’t help but think that a lot of these If-the-election-were-held-today polls are ignoring the fact that Hillary has been relatively quiet for the last couple of months. Trump and Cruz have been monopolizing the media. Every time Hillary has the media’s focus for more than a week, her numbers go down. She has a Nixonian level of unlikeability. Yes, I know, Trump is not exactly loved by the greater electorate either.

But, she cannot hide anymore…and what work history she does have is downright pathetic. Plus all the scandals and her husband’s threatened women are fair game if she chooses to play the sexist card. And, of course, all the pissed off Millenial Bernie supporters are going to stay home. Minorities won’t come out for her like they did for Obama either.

The Dem platform is leading. You have to bet $3 against her to win $1. What, Dem worry? You need only bet $1 on Trump/GOP to maybe win $2. Bookies are paying you to bet that Trumo/GOP/banning abortion will win. Go for it!

To me, being a Goldwater/Reagan Republican meant caring about six out of seven of those things + fighting communism.

I don’t see a Republican in the race anymore. I see two Democrats, with one of them having won the Republican nomination.

I couldn’t care less if there’s a tranny in the next stall–somehow Trump supporters seem to think that issue makes them Republicans and differentiates them from Democrats. I don’t give a shit about stuff like that. It’s a distinction without a difference on the issues I care about. Trump might as well be a Democrat, and we’re going to find that he runs far to the left of Barry Goldwater.

Trump 2016: To repudiate Obama, Hillary, the Democratic Party, the SJWs, the GOP establishment, to watch various celebrities move to Canada (or make excuses for not keeping their word), and for the lulz of watching millions of heads explode.

Hey, libertarians always talk about limits on executive power, so Trump can unite all sides on that issue! The NY Times will do a 180 and preach on the limits of executive orders! It’ll be fun, come on!

Trump is not pro-gun rights. He’s actually supported banning “assault weapons” in the past. His recent conversion coincided with his desire to run for the Republican nomination. If there’s any principled resistance to eroding our gun rights while Trump is in office, it’ll come from the Republicans in the House–not the President.

I’ll quote my view on this from above:

“As it is, I don’t think Hillary and Trump are really that far apart on the Second Amendment. Hillary will use the next mass shooting as an opportunity to come after our gun rights. Trump won’t resist pressure to come after our gun rights if he thinks appealing to traditional Democrats will help him get reelected. In practice, I’m not sure there’s much difference between the two.”

Trump isn’t stupid. He knows being anti-gun would be the death knell for his campaign. Hell, “traditional” Dems (blue-collar) are pro-gun and becoming part of his base. He’s got to know the anti-gunners will never vote for him, so I don’t see him throwing away his base to chase them.

In fact, it’s hard to find areas in which Trump is not either the same as or superior to Hillary. (I’m not saying good, just superior or a wash.) I think it’s bizarre for libertarians to say “Trump is bad on eminent domain!” As if Hillary is a big supporter of property rights? Give me a break. So in what way is Hillary better than Trump from a libertarian perspective?

Ruins America faster; has more people taking advantage of govn’t money; pisses off a bunch of people; probably makes Dem party look bad; more support for white supremacists who have been pretty hilarious as of late.

The founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were very sarcastic in their support of a republic.

You can pretty much understand their frustration when Benjamin was denouncing the bald eagle as the national animal, and arguing that even the Turkey would be a better suggestion. It really opens the blinds to the type of people who were influencing the colonies.

Who was that dollar sign business suit guy that said the best way to expose government is to exploit their welfare grants? Basically, there’s no saving the country, it’s going to continue to progress in the direction most people fear. Why make things worse for the world by prolonging it’s dismantlement or complete reform?

Did you not hear Trump say he doesn’t give a shit about what bathrooms Trannies use? it caused endless amounts of heartburn among the never Trump crown. Trump doesn’t give a shit about the culture war issues like abortion and all that. That is one of the biggest complaints the NRO half wits have about him.

So why do you think he and his supporters think the opposite?

And if you care so much about free trade, why do you like Reagan so much? He was the last president who made any effort to restrict foreign imports.

And if Trump is a Democrat it is going to come as one hell of a surprise to every Democrat I know.

Many phony Republicans today think of “conservative” as a code word for being on one side of the culture war.

Goldwater and Reagan didn’t see it that way. Mr. Conservative denounced that side of the culture war, and Reagan never even bothered to throw them a bone.

I think support for Trump is mainly coming from two places:

1) White, blue collar, middle class, traditional Democrats–who’ve been chased out of the Democratic party by social justice warriors with contempt.

2) As a reaction to having a Social Justice Warrior in chief for the last eight years. The more politically incorrect Trump becomes, the more his supporters like him–indicating that they like him because he’s politically incorrect.

I’m saying that in reality, there is very little difference between Hillary and Trump on the traditional Republican issues that matter to me as a libertarian. That is part of what I was trying to say about them both being Democrats.

Romney may have been able to pass as a Democrat in the sense that he was able to get elected in Massachusetts, but there were significant differences between Romney and Obama. I certainly wouldn’t say that there was no difference between Romney and Obama on the traditional Republican issues that I care about as a libertarian: “capitalism, tax cutting, spending cuts, free trade, [and] deregulation”.

In other words, whether Romney could pass as a Democrat and whether he was the same as Obama on those issues are separate questions. I’m not sure Trump could pass as a Democrat today given their obsession with social justice today, but I don’t see much difference between Trump and Hillary on those issues I listed–that I’ve associated with being a Republican since before Goldwater, in fact, since the New Deal.

I am amazed at how many people think Hillary is a shoo-in with her platform of more Obamacare (now for illegal aliens!), more gun control, and more Muslim refugees. Plus, all men being told how terrible they are to women. And all straights being told how terrible they are to gays and transsexuals. Yeah, that’s what the voters will flock to!

And of course, the inevitable anti-Trump riots by people waving Mexican flags will surely swing many voters in her direction.

I am hoping and praying that the “organized” rioters do start using US flags, that someone passes out Mexican flags, and that the organizers catch on and try to shut them down.

The visuals will be epic. “Pro-Mexican” rioters attacking people with Mexican flags. Fistfights between people with US and Mexican flags. Mexican activists complaining that someone is passing out Mexican flags.

This article is a classic example of how out of touch many in the media are (including Mr. Suderman) with how the vast majority of Americans think and in turn vote, regardless of party affiliation. A presidential election is no different than a 5th grade student council election. 5th graders vote for “free candy”, “no homework”, and “playgrounds for 5th graders only”. When those 5th graders grow up, they vote for “free college”, “welfare”, and “walls”. This isn’t rocket science.

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Honestly, if you assume that calling the GOP establishment’s bluff (vote for this worthless POS who will give you pillow talk and save his political capital for our lobbyist buddies, or else the Democrats will win and hurt you even worse) would almost certainly require a populist movement, then there would never be a better time than running against someone like Hillary.

In 1980 we were told that Reagan was the worst candidate and could never be elected.

In 1984 we were told that Reagan was evil, stupid (amiable dunce) and the worse candidate.

In 1988 we were told that GHWB was the most electable candidate. He got in because of the evil Reagan. Remember “voodoo economics”.

In 1992 we were told that GHWB was the most electable candidate.

In 1996 we were told that Dole was the most electable candidate.

In 2000 we were told that GWB was the best conservative candidate. He won but he was no conservative; compassionate or not.

In 2004 we were told that GWB was the best conservative candidate. He won but he was no conservative; compassionate or not.

In 2008 we were told that McCain was the most electable candidate.

In 2012 we were told that Romney was the most electable candidate.

And now the same people are telling us that Trump is the most Unelectable candidate. And you all wonder what we were thinking? Why the common voter does not believe you? How dumb can the average voter be? Well, wonder no longer.

WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU: LYING LIARS AND THE LIES THEY TELL EVERY ELECTION!

I’m glad you said GOP voters rather than republicans. Most people whip voted for trump are completely unaware of the republican platform. Hell, they’re unaware that political parties are private organizations and that they only voted in preference polls.

Sorry for the looking winded response. What I meant to say is they are either ignorant or retarded.

You might also ask why the Democrats picked such a weak nominee. Many voters are fearful and angry. They want an outsider, especially one who doesn’t speak in politically correct terms and who sounds tough on terrorism. You really think they want another corrupt Washington insider who will tell them the last 8 years weren’t so bad, because she’s promising more of the same?

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This kind of poor research and analysis is why I can’t take anything written at REASON seriously. The CNN poll cited is not “likely” voters – but includes the Jay Leno/Jimmy Kimmell “sidewalk” idiots who think Joe Biden is one of the Ben & Jerry founders..

This is in the middle of a $70 Million – 64,000 negative ad barage and and other 2.3 Billion in negative (free) media. People who actually LIKE logic (and regressive trend analysis of primary voter patterns) see that Newt Gingrich is right in saying, for the first time since 1984 EVERY STATE might be in play for the GOP.

Two polls (one from SurveyUSA) confirms polls from last fall that an enormous amount of minorities are prepared to vote for Trump. 40% of Blacks and 45% of Hispanics and 25% of the Democratic BASE overall. In fact – over 40% of Bernie Sanders supporters have said they would consider voting for Trump.

The reason the GOP voters selected Trump was simple. They are tired of being screwed by Cruz types who claim they are “conservative” and then end up rolling over for every big government program that comes along. Trump has indeed killed the GOP establishment with this win. If you think murderous Hillary will be any tougher than Trump’s own party, you really should change the name of this website.

I don’t read Reason for pedestrian, unoriginal commentary. I can get this sort of shallow, reflexive Trump-bashing in any major media publication or website. I look to Reason for insights I couldn’t find elsewhere. This article provided none.

If you don’t have anything original to contribute to the discussion please don’t bother writing the article. This one reads like something churned out to meet a deadline.

So who were they supposed to nominate, Kasich? He’s the only one who appears electable by current polls.

But you know that wouldn’t hold up by Nov. Kasich is doing well in the vs.-a-Democrat polls (as is Sanders) because he doesn’t have high negatives?yet. Whoever’s nominated will get att’n & build up those negative numbers.

i’ve decided that if hillary has a chance to win indiana, i’ll vote for her reluctantly. if not, i’ll vote for the libertarian nominee, which i assume will be johnson. god help us if there is a terrorist attack or if obama’s justice department starts doing their job, because i legitimately fear trump. of course, we’ll need god, or anyone else’s help we can get regardless of which evil gets elected. we might’ve actually hit bottom folks.

the thing that trump and sanders have in common, and this has obviously worked out better for trump over the long run, is that they both think the rules of reality and politics don’t apply to them. they’ve both been right a lot, but at a certain point, everyone learns that the rules exist for a reason, and they usually find out after everyone else. in other words, the media, etc can be consistently wrong about trump, but sooner or later the law of averages kicks in.

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The pundits who are today saying that Trump can’t beat Hillary are the same pundits who, six months ago, were saying that Trump didn’t have a chance at the nomination. There is no bigger waste of time than watching the “experts” on Sunday morning TV. Trump is a steamroller, Hillary is a tired old hag. In the end, people don’t vote for a political philosophy, they vote for a personality. Trump wins.

So if conventional wisdom was wrong about Trump’s chances in the primary, it must also be wrong about his chances in the general? I disagree.

Conventional wisdom in the primary phase was contradicted by the polls from beginning to end. The difference in the general is that conventional wisdom just so happens now to be supported by the polls. Put conventional wisdom aside (which is really nothing more than wishful thinking supported by confirmation bias), and look at the polls instead. They accurately predicted the winners of the primary, and they will accurately predict the winner of the general.

The presumption in this article seems to be that voters should consider whether or not their candidate can win when they cast their vote. The purpose of a vote is not to guess the most popular candidate, rather to pick the one that most nearly reflects your opinion of how the government should act. The chances are that if voters choose to vote for the person that most nearly sees things the way they do, for a change the lesser of two evils will not prevail. With that in mind how about considering the Libertarian candidate, likely to be Gary Johnson? It would be more rational for a magazine such as Reason to consider Johnson than Trump or Clinton. It would be more rational for the voters as well. We have not considered a socially liberal and financially conservative candidate for some time. Maybe we are due.

Are these the same people who have spent the past seven years demanding the support of actual conservatives every election so that they could “fight the Obama agenda,” only to tell us to sit in the corner and shut up the moment we gave them the election and immediately take it up the tailpipe from the Obama administration?

Are these the same people that could have supported Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio in the primaries and nominated an actual conservative, but decided to tell us plebians that they were going to ram JEB! down our throats?

Are these the same people who squawk every election about the need to “Presidential” (translation: snatch defeat from the jaws of victory) and would rather hand the election to Hillary than see Cruz or Rubio win?

Forget it. If Trump does one-tenth of what he says he will, he’ll accomplish more actual conservative agenda items than all the Boehners of the world combined over the past decade. And if Trump accomplishes nothing other than sitting on his hands and emblazoning “TRUMP” in giant gold letters across the White House, he’ll be less of a threat to America than that Benghazi-creating, national-security-compromising, gun-grabbing traitor Hillary.

Donald Trump works very hard. He may indeed be a loose canon, but stay out of his sights. His 70% unfavorable is Only 10points off of Hillary at 60% unfavorable. Oh vey! Primary voters may be up to date on the nuances of the current campaigns, but remember there are 46% of us that are independents. Possible because we are even more interested in the country than party hacks.

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One reason for some may be, which few seem to have made note of, that Donald is obviously not a Christian fundamentalist religious fanatic, unlike virtually all others in the Republican field of candidates. Even Rand Paul is clearly in the thrall of an angry, biblically literal, God. He very un-astutely misidentified the mad, bad God pack of hyenas as, somehow, the continuing future. That was a big mistake.

I don’t think that Republicans are very smart to have chosen Trump (but then, they’re still Republicans) but I think that the Christian fanaticism is finally starting to wear awfully thin for growing numbers of voters and they’re doing what little they can identify to reject the Moral Majority Era. Donald Trump happens to be near-at-hand.

If Republicans don’t begin to ditch the downmarket dumbkopf brand of religious zeal, their days really are numbered.

And good riddance! One party down, one more to go.

Now, will LP be able to capitalize on this development? I wish I could feel more confident.

This is same ole line of bullchit from the mainstream media. Trump has run a masterful campaign and he will continue to rally voters around him. In 100 years there will be a DJT day as he saves the world from globalization working in conjunction with Putin.

the latest polls show Trump has moved to within the margin of error, Trump has brought the voters in record numbers..now that Cruz it out of the picture, Trump can concentrate on Hillary and the Rhinos,

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